The Playboy Club

"I have for many years been puzzled by the persistence of Hugh Hefner," writer Nora Ephron writes in this week's Newsweek. "Why is he still here? Why does anyone write about him?" This is relevant, of course, because NBC will premier a new series about the Playboy Club next week. In typical TV fashion, the show depicts the Playboy bunnies as glamorous and empowered—but Ephron sets the record straight. "Trust me," she writes, "no one wanted to be a Bunny. A Bunny's life was essentially that of an underpaid waitress forced to wear a tight costume."

A look at a few moments in Playboy bunny history, starting with the original Chicago Playboy Club, pictured here (with Hugh Hefner) in 1960.